Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has become the first PM of the country to be removed by a no-trust vote. Khan, who stayed defiant “till the last ball”, was ousted well after midnight, after high drama in the Pakistan assembly through the day.
Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif, the 70-year-old younger brother of former three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has been nominated as the joint candidate for the prime minister’s election, scheduled on Monday. Soon after the nomination, Sharif thanked opposition leaders for “standing up for the Constitution”.
On the other hand, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party has nominated Shah Mahmood Qureshi as their candidate. The National Assembly is likely to elect the new prime minister tomorrow afternoon.
Opposition party PPP’s Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari congratulated the people of Pakistan. “Democracy was under attack for the last three years. Welcome to purana (old) Pakistan,” he said in a jibe at Imran Khan’s poll pitch of “Naya (new) Pakistan”. Democracy is a golden vengeance, he added.
Amid high drama, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly resigned ahead of the court deadline for the vote. The Supreme Court and the Islamabad High Court were opened in anticipation of a midnight contempt hearing. PM Khan had defiantly announced in the cabinet meeting that he won’t resign.
Calling on the people of Pakistan to protect the country’s sovereignty, Prime Minister Imran Khan last night asked the people to hit the streets and peacefully protest against an “imported government”.
Making sensational claims of a foreign conspiracy, PM Khan has claimed that foreign powers are trying to topple his government and Pakistan’s lawmakers are being traded like sheep to accomplish this. “We got to know that US diplomats were meeting our people. Then we got to know about the entire plan,” he said.
